


Where the People Are

by Lauralot



Series: Daddy Issues [15]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Interspecies Romance, Language Barrier, M/M, Mermaids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-05-15 06:51:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5775820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauralot/pseuds/Lauralot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony’s found that the mermaids are not shy.  There aren’t any bedrooms in the sea, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-shot AU of the _Daddy Issues_ AU. Because I love mermaids, and I love ridiculousness.

“Fish are not allowed in the bed!”

Tony shakes his head, loosening his tie as JARVIS translates his words into a series of trills and whistles. On the mattress, Bucky buries his face in a pillow and Steve lifts his head, but the mermaids are otherwise motionless.

Winter clicks out a reply. “ _Soft_ ,” JARVIS translates.

“You’re gonna get my sheets all briny,” Tony says. “And you’re going to dry out.”

The mermaids aren’t actually named Bucky, Steve, or Winter, of course. But names in their mermaid tongue—Mermese?—aren’t something Tony can mimic, and their exact translations are all weird things like ‘Ocean Flower’ or ‘Winter Current.’ Apparently mermaids are hippies.

Or mermen are, anyway, since there aren’t any women in the bunch. Either way, Tony’s just taken to calling them by the closest equivalents he can pronounce.

“How long did it take you to haul yourself out of the pool and into my bedroom, anyway?” Honestly. Leave the house to speak at one conference, and suddenly the mermaids decide they’re land animals.

“ _You were gone,_ ” Winter says. “ _We were bored_.”

Bored. Tony has the better part of the ground floor torn out and remade into a saltwater pool so the mermaids can explore to their hearts’ content, and they’re bored. He supposes he should be relieved that all the mermaids wanted to do was rub their faces on his bedspread like overgrown, aquatic cats. It could be worse. In the time they’ve been here, Tony’s found the mermaids are not shy about screwing. There aren’t any bedrooms in the sea, after all.

And he’s not sure how to get mer-fluids out of his sheets.

“For being bored,” Tony says, draping his tie over the back of a chair, “you’re not doing much.”

“ _This place is soft. We don’t need to._ ”

“Why are mermaids so lazy?”

“ _Why do humans complain so much_?” That one’s Brock. The oldest mermaid, covered from head to fin in circular scarring. From a shark attack years ago, Steve had said.

Isaac reaches with his hand, the fins on his arm fanning out. “ _Come sit with us_.”

Most of the mermaids have claws, pointed teeth, and sharp spines incorporated into their fins. Isaac’s teeth are flat, and he’s flowing and soft, colored like a beta fish. He said that he’d originally lived along a reef, but then he got caught in a current and the carnivorous mermaids ended up rescuing him.

If that’s anything to go by, then it’s a miracle mermaids aren’t extinct.

“Absolutely not. I came home to unwind, not to get scraped up by a bunch of scaly bed hogs.”

“ _I’ve seen pigs._ ” Bucky raises his head, frowning. JARVIS has shown them pictures of land animals. “ _We are vastly superior_.”

Tony decides he doesn’t have the energy to explain metaphors right now. He’s about to go lie down on the nearest couch when he realizes that something’s off. He counts the mermaids on the bed. Isaac, Steve, Brock, Bucky, and Winter. Only five. “Where’s James?”

He crosses over to the bed just to be sure they aren’t smothering the little guy. No James. His pet fish isn’t on the bed either, which. Good. Tony couldn’t handle the screaming if the kid accidentally murdered his pet because he didn’t understand that it can’t breathe on land like he does.

“ _He was too small to climb on the bed,_ ” Bucky says.

“So you just left him to wander?” Again, how are they not extinct?

“ _I tried to help him up,_ ” Steve protests. His fins are beginning to look distinctly spiny, and Tony hopes he doesn’t stab holes in the mattress.

“ _I laughed,_ ” Winter says. “ _So he went away_.”

“Fantastic. I better go make sure he’s not chewing through an electrical cord.”

Tony turns to go. A webbed hand smacks him across the ass.

He whirls back around to find Winter staring evenly at him, tapping his red tail lightly against the headboard as if he’s beckoning.

Damn mermaids and their insatiable libidos.

Let’s go diving, Pepper had said. It’ll be great.

Great, sure. In the sense that he got kicked in the face by a tiny mermaid and ended up with five stitches along his cheek. Not to mention that Winter had nearly drowned him for discovering their group until Isaac managed to drag him to safety.

Granted, Tony has just made the scientific discovery of the century. And having a house full of beautiful men who are all very interested in sexual experimentation with humans does have its perks. But still. He doesn’t want to have to shake scales off of his bed sheets tonight.

He finds James dragging himself back to the edge of the pool, making very slow progress because he’s trying to haul two throw pillows along with him.

“Whoa, little mermaid,” Tony says. “What are you doing?”

“Chicken!” James says happily. He’s picked up a few English words—mostly the names of foods—and he’s very happy to show them off, regardless of whether or not they make sense in context.

“Yes, chicken. But what’s with the pillows, kiddo?”

“ _Soft_!” James explains. His smile is all little pointed teeth.

“Right.” Tony reaches down and scoops the kid up. He’s wriggly and damp, but at least now he’s learned how to draw his spines in around others. “They’re very soft. I like that about them. But they’re supposed to be soft on the couch, okay?”

“ _But Bucky-Fish_!”

Why the kid decided to name his pet fish after his dad, Tony will never know. Bucky sure doesn’t seem to appreciate it. “No, James, the pillows won’t be soft underwater. I can make some pillows that will work underwater, but you can’t do it with these, okay? They’re not designed to get wet. Like books.”

“Books?” James asks. It’s weird how mermaids speaking English sound vaguely Polish.

“I’ll show you.” Tony uses his foot to slide the pillows away from the rim of the pool. “Maybe you’ll even be the first mermaid to learn how to read, huh?”

“Chicken,” says James, nodding his head.


	2. Chapter 2

Brock’s already scowling before the movie even starts. “ _What do humans know about merfolk?_ ”

“Not much,” Tony admits. “But hey, it’ll be interesting to see what they _think_ you’re like, won’t it?”

The stare he receives in response is withering. Mermaids are kind of xenophobic, although given that they’re pretty much the only cognizant creatures in the ocean, it makes sense. They’re also consistently unimpressed by any human innovations that Tony tries to show them.

“They live in water,” Pepper had said when Tony complained to her. “Why would they be excited about electronics?”

“Because I make awesome things,” Tony had protested, definitely not sulking as he did.

Now the mermaids are all lined up, elbows resting on the rim of the pool, staring expectantly at the screen JARVIS is projecting on the wall. JARVIS is going to have to translate the movie line by line, including the songs, but Tony has faith in him. He’s had a lot of practice in rapid translation; when Tony first introduced them to television, the mermaids had refused to flip through channels and ended up watching a full Lifetime drama.

Hopefully, they’ll be more impressed with _The Little Mermaid_ than they were with _She Woke Up Pregnant._

The mermaids do seem fascinated by the animation. Tony supposes there’s not a lot of drawing happening under the sea; paper wouldn’t survive and any etchings in the sand wouldn’t last. James is especially enamored, wiggling in Steve’s arms and trilling softly.

What surprises Tony is their response to the music. Winter tenses, and Isaac even leans away from the screen a little.

“ _What is that_?” Bucky asks.

“Music,” Tony says. “With...instruments.” He supposes that brass and woodwinds don’t work so well under water. Percussion might, but he didn’t see any aquatic drum sets in the mermaids’ cave. “I’ll show you later. You’ll like it.”

Hopefully. Tony can’t tell if the mermaids are just surprised by the music or if they dislike it.

At least James is happy. When Flounder shows up, the kid squeals, pointing at the screen and trying to cuddle Bucky-Fish without taking him out of the water. JARVIS is too busy with the movie to translate, but Tony can imagine that he’s yelping, “See? See?”

Winter frowns. He doesn’t like James associating with a “stupid fish.”

Tony’s stomach starts to rumble around the “Part of Your World” reprise. When Ariel first surfaces with her new legs, he has JARVIS pause the movie, introducing it as intermission. Tony heads to the kitchen and returns a few minutes later with bowls of popcorn.

James, who seems to be using intermission to try and reenact “Under the Sea” with Bucky-Fish, immediately resurfaces.

“Phone!” he says, splashing over to the popcorn. James has been under the impression that phones are a kind of food ever since their first day on land, when Pepper had used her phone to pull up pictures in an attempt to explain what a chicken was.

“You like it so far, kiddo?” Tony asks, watching James swallow the popcorn whole, like a shark.

“Ariel!” James says, slapping his tail against the side of the pool.

“ _It’s beautiful_ ,” Isaac says. He’s still staring at the image paused on the screen.

“ _It’s ridiculous,_ ” Rumlow counters. “ _Why would a mermaid ever want to be a human_?”

Winter nods. “ _Humans don’t have fins. They can’t even breathe underwater._ ”

“ _There’s not much point in building castles,_ ” Bucky adds. “ _We go where our food does_.”

“ _We’ve investigated shipwrecks_ ,” Steve says. He reaches over and ruffles James’s hair. “ _There weren’t any books. They don’t last in the water like that._ ”

“Amazing,” Tony says. “Your first real movie, and you’re already all nitpicking like you’ve spent years on the Internet.”

“ _I like it,_ ” Isaac says. “ _It’s pretty. How do they make it look that way_?”

“I can explain animation once we’re done,” Tony offers. “It’s really interesting.”

Bucky shrugs. “ _It’s all right._ ”

“Ariel!” James says.

“Yeah.” Tony smiles at him. “Ariel. Let’s get back to her, okay?”

And all the mermaids, even Winter and Brock, watch attentively when he turns it back on.


	3. Chapter 3

“Okay, James.” Tony sets the little guy on the bathroom countertop. “Ready for an exciting new lesson in the world of human things?”

“Dinglehopper!” Ever since they watched _The Little Mermaid,_ that’s become James’s favorite new word. He’d persuaded Pepper to give him some forks, and he keeps trying to comb out everyone’s hair with them.

“Not quite, kiddo. But sort of! It’s like a dinglehopper for your mouth, okay?” Tony puts the toothbrush in James’s little webbed hands. “See this? It’s called a toothbrush.”

“Brush.”

“Right! Good job. And this is something that humans use every day. Ariel definitely had one when she was human. And now that one’s yours. This one’s mine.” Tony picks up his own toothbrush. “We don’t share toothbrushes. That’s a rule.”

The mermaids never needed toothbrushes in the sea. Water flowed through their mouths and back out their gills constantly, rinsing away any bits of meat or vegetation caught between their teeth. But that isn’t the case on land.

“ _Absolutely not_ ,” Winter had said when Tony introduced the concept of the toothbrush. “ _If I eat on land, I will simply return to the water. We have no use for that stupid thing._ ”

Which, in strictly hygienic terms, is a fair point. But the mermaids like to kiss Tony. And all of them save for Isaac taste like decaying meat. Plus, their teeth are black. _Black._ There’s no way that’s a good sign.

Which is where James comes in. If Tony wins over the kid, then Winter will have no excuse. None of them will. Unless they want to refuse something that a five year-old could handle.

James is running the bristles against his hair.

“No, James.” Tony reaches out, guiding his hand away. “It goes in your mouth, remember? Here, I’ll show you. Get your fins out of the sink so I don’t get toothpaste on them, okay?”

James starts at the whir of Tony’s toothbrush, his ear fins flattening against his head. Maybe it was a bad idea to start with the electric brush. But in his defense, _black teeth._

Anyway, after a few seconds, curiosity gets the best of James and he leans forward, wide-eyed. He seems fascinated by the way the toothpaste goes foamy. Tony hopes he’ll like the minty flavor, but not enough to try and eat the stuff.

He spits in the sink—narrowly missing the fin that James slipped back in—and rinses his mouth. “See? You feel really good afterwards. Your mouth is really clean.”

“Brush,” James says.

“Right. Here.” Tony closes his hand over James’s, guiding the toothbrush up to his mouth. “You want to try it? I can show you how to move the brush.”

He puts a dab of toothpaste on the bristles. “Open wide.”

James opens his mouth. Tony lines the brush up with the lower row of little black fangs. “Ready?”

He presses the button, and that’s when the howling starts.

*

“What were you thinking?” Pepper demands. She keeps pouring alcohol over the bite marks on his hand, which Tony thinks is less about disinfecting and more about punishment at this point.

“That his teeth were disgusting? Ow!”

“You need a rabies shot,” Pepper says, scrubbing roughly at the wounds.

“Sea creatures don’t get rabies.”

“Not taking the risk,” she says. “You know their teeth are meant to be that way, right? If it were the result of rot, none of the adults would have teeth left.”

None of the adults are speaking to Tony right now. Last he saw them, Winter was glaring and hissing in his direction as Steve cradled James in his arm and sang to him in the water. The other mermaids just scowled.

“Why would they have black teeth? That’s weird.”

Pepper stares at him. “They have gills but can still breathe on land, and you think their teeth are weird?”

“That’s different,” Tony protests. “From an evolutionary standpoint—”

“You can’t just stick a toothbrush in a kid’s mouth when he doesn’t understand what it’s for,” Pepper says. “Especially one that vibrates.”

“I told him what it was for! JARVIS was translating!”

“And you thought he was listening?” Pepper rolls her eyes.

“Uh, yeah?”

“Tony.” She shakes her head. “You’re not even fit to handle human kids.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/152680774@N07/35562236340/in/dateposted-public/)


	4. Chapter 4

“James!”  Tony stares down at what used to be the kitchen floor.  Now it’s so strewn with trash and decimated groceries that he can barely see the tile.  It looks like James knocked over the trash can trying to haul himself up on the counter, and then took out two shelves of the refrigerator while he was at it.  “James, what the _hell_?”  


“Eggs!” James says.  If it bothers him that he’s covered in coffee grounds and spilled milk, he doesn’t show it.  He’s wriggling around in the mess, clutching a seemingly miscellaneous assortment of food products.  A container of tea leaves.  Sausage links.  A head of cabbage and a box of baking soda.  “Eggs!”

“None of those are eggs, James.”  At least the eggs are safe and unbroken on the refrigerator door.  Tony’s trying not to see red.  “You know to ask if you want food, little mermaid.  Your parents aren’t gonna be happy.”  For all their bizarre social customs, the mermaids loathe wasted food.  


“Eggs!” James insists.  He slaps his tail against the floor, sending an apple rolling under the table.  Then he repeats himself in his native tongue, which Jarvis translates.  


It would have been nice if Jarvis had bothered to warn him about the destruction of his kitchen.

“We’re putting this back,” Tony announces.  “And then you’re going to tell your dads what you did.”  


James howls each time Tony manages to pry any food out of his webbed little hands.  He fights especially hard over the tea leaves, trying to hide himself in a cabinet.  It doesn’t make a damn bit of sense: James has never even _had_ tea.  Pepper had tried introducing the mermaids to bubble tea the other day, but Winter freaked out at the texture of the tapioca balls and confiscated everyone’s glasses, hissing and trilling.

Tony’s nearly as filthy as James by the time he manages to wrangle the kid back to the poolside.  He should rinse James off before he dumps him in the water, he knows, but Tony’s too annoyed.  Let the mermaids deal with him.

None of the adults even seem to notice James despite his barks and whistles, all gathered around one corner of the pool.  Finally, Winter looks up, frowning.  “ _Where’s the food_?” he demands.

“This little homewrecker spilled everything,” Tony says, dropping James into the water with an undignified splash.  “Why would you send _him_ for food?  Why wouldn’t you have Jarvis ask me?”  


“ _We’re busy_ ,” Winter says, which is no answer at all.  Then he turns back to the corner.  


“Tell that to my kitchen!”  


“ _Shut up_ ,” Brock says.  He doesn’t even glance Tony’s way.  


James, having righted himself in the pool, swims furiously toward his family.  Steve catches him before he can reach the wall, and even underwater, his shrieks are still audible.

Well, this can’t be good.  And when have the mermaids ever missed an opportunity to laugh at Tony’s misfortune?

Tony makes his way around to their side of the pool, careful to keep out of range of any claws in case they’re feeling territorial.

They’re all staring at the same thing: James with a huge, sharp smile, Brock looking as protective as he did when Tony first discovered their ocean den.  Steve and Bucky are both holding James between them, and Winter is hugging onto Isaac.

In the corner of the pool is a mass of dark little orbs.

 _Eggs_ , James had said.

“What the _hell_?” Tony sputters.  “You can’t just start spawning in my swimming pool!  I wasn’t consulted for this!”  He can’t deal with _more_ mermaids.  Especially not that many.  It’ll kill him.  


“ _You can’t stop nature_ ,” Steve says.  


“ _You shouldn’t have given us food and a safe environment if you didn’t want us to breed_ ,” Brock adds.  


“Jarvis!  Why didn’t you warn me?!”  


Jarvis, who had been translating flawlessly up to this point, is now completely silent.  Traitor.

“ _Quiet,_ ” Bucky says.  He strokes James’s hair, grinning like a bastard.  “ _You’re disturbing them._ ”  


Tony feels dizzy, lightheaded.  There’s a nausea growing in his stomach that’s not just from the smell of the garbage that James spread all over him.  “I--who even--”

“ _Isaac,_ ” Winter says, absolutely beaming.  He hugs tight onto Isaac, who buries his face against Winter’s shoulder, seemingly overcome with emotion.

“I--”  Tony shakes his head once.  Twice.  Three times still isn’t enough to clear it.  There’s got to be at least two dozen of those eggs.  There’s not room.  He can’t handle this.  “I need air.  I’m going for a drive.  Or something.”

“ _You’ll get your car all dirty_ ,” Steve says brightly, still fixated on the eggs.  


“Whatever.”  


A door slams shut behind him as he makes his way out.  The mermaids look up at the sound, waiting for the distant rumble of one of Stark’s many cars to reach their ears before they begin to laugh out loud.

“ _His face_!” Bucky shrieks.

“ _He looked as dumb as a flatfish_!” Brock smirks, pushing back in the water and disturbing the ‘eggs’ with the force of his tail.  It hadn’t been easy to keep the tapioca balls from floating up.

“ _Now get those out of the water,_ ” Winter demands. He doesn’t trust any food that isn’t a fish or sea plant.  


James pouts.  “ _But I wanted_ \--”

“ _No_.”  


“ _I didn’t think he’d fall for it_ ,” Steve muses, guiding James away.  “ _We only have one child--why would he think we lay eggs_?”  


Isaac remains staring at the windows, frowning slightly.  “ _He looked worried_.”

“ _Think of how relieved he’ll be when he learns it was a joke,_ ” Winter offers, giving Isaac a gentle splash.  


Isaac nods, helping to scoop the tapioca out of the pool.


End file.
